“Much of the Negev, under the Jews, would be brought under irrigation and provide homes for several hundred thousands of people” while “under Arab control, it would remain a desert,” Walter C. Lowdermilk, proponent of a Jordan Valley Authority for Palestine and former assistant chief of the U.S. Soil Conservation Service, declared today.
In a letter to the New York Times he pointed out that the severing of the Negev area from Israel, as envisaged in the Bernadotte proposals for settling the Palestine dispute, “would deny reclamation of badly neglected and damaged lands of Palestine.”
“The Berndotte proposal is an unenlightened approach to the basic problems that face all the people of Palestine as well as the world today,” Lowdermilk stated. “For political stability depends on economic stability. Further breaking up of the country administratively would deny such resource development for Palestine and deny gainful occupation to more than 2,000,000 people in agriculture and industries.”
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